


Toby's Last Memory

by Azraella



Category: Astro Boy
Genre: Choices, Death, Difficult Decisions, Dr. Elefun, Dr. Tenma - Freeform, Elefun, Loss, Main Character Death, Memories, Pain, Peacekeeper - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Robot, Tenma - Freeform, Toby is Astro Boy, Trauma, a few short chapters, dillusional father, graphic depictions of death, grieving father, improved, not poetry for once, oh the feels, recollections, rewritten, toby - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3090269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azraella/pseuds/Azraella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The grieving father, Dr. Tenma has just built Astro and infused his child's memories into him. He chooses not to have his new replacement son remember the last few days of his life leading up to the tragic events of his death...but one little memory slips through, Toby's last and most striking memory.<br/>Based off of my favourite scene from the 2009 Astro Boy movie.<br/>*rewritten</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Red Core

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place BETWEEN the Peacekeeper demonstration and when Astro wakes up in the morning.
> 
> Please note that I desperately want to reward all of my readers, and followers. First I want to apologize and second I want to finally finish this fic. I have been away from this fic for such a long time that it needed rewriting. Here it is rewritten, while I try getting back into the swing of things.
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own Astro boy the original, nor the newly revamped version (although I prefer the new one, but to each his own) they belong to Imagi, Osamu Tezuka and David Bowers etc... etc...

Moments before, Toby remembered thinking that the weaponized machine was amazing. Its adaptive technology modified its armour and by connection, its artillery, as it required. The battle between the emotionless droids had filled the air with an array of fireworks made of red and yellow beams. They seemed far more harmless in comparison to their actual deadly nature.

It had been fun to watch until things had taken a turn for the worst. The robot turned against its creators. As he had watched from the sidelines, he remembered feeling exhilarated as well as slightly scared for his father as the Peacekeeper charged full throttle towards the unprotected beings.

Out of the corner of the young boy's eye he saw the bony arm of his father lift up, as he turned his attention momentarily towards him he realized that he was activating the shield.

Toby had been told to stay in a 'safe' place, which was in the janitor's closet that one of the guards had put him in. No one had known or even had the chance to realize that the sly boy had slipped out of the enclosure and snuck into the demonstration laboratory.

Feeling slightly safer that the shield was lowering at an increasing speed, he relaxed knowing that he'd be safe with the others…until he noticed his location…at the other end of the lab. The side that was being closed off from the Peacekeeper was at the opposite end. As soon as the glass would hit the floor and lock its position, it would stay sealed unless someone was to open it in emergency.

Heavy metal steps reverberated menacingly as they thundered across the laboratory floor. The Peacekeeper rapidly approached the console that separated the President and scientists from the raging machine.

Toby raced towards the clear shield just as the Peacekeeper collided with it at such an unbelievable speed that the thick protective glass shook violently. He reached his destination as the shaking stopped. He pulled back to hit the glass and call for help, when smoke and sparks flew from the opening in the ceiling in which the shield had emerged from.

 

"Dad! Dad!" Toby screamed as he pounded on the glass barrier, catching Tenma and Elefun's attentions. Their shock turned to horror at realizing the gravity of the situation.

"TOBY!" The scientist shouted.

"DAD! HELP! PLEASE HELP ME!" He looked at his father and his co-worker desperately pressing buttons on the console. As he watched his father yell, nothing moved and his panic levels skyrocketed. The cold feeling of dread washed over him and nervous energy coursed through his veins. He felt himself go red from the exertion of pounding on the glass barricade.

His thoughts bounced around the room, trying to remember if there was another exit. He came up with nothing, knowing that the heavy door he entered through locked upon emergency and safety was on the other side of the the glass.

"DAD! DAD!" His voice raised and quickened in a vain attempt at willing the machine to function again. All the while banging his thick hands against the barrier.

The Peacekeeper's red core light blared through the glass and shone onto their panicked faces. The deadly rogue of a robot pulled his club of an arm back menacingly before delivering two earsplitting strikes to the shield. They rattled Toby's head so sharply that he bent over in reflexive pain,

"Stop it!" he yelled to the machine. As he looked up, his father had raced towards him and was pressing his hands against the barricade, yelling his name.

 

"Dad HELP!"

"TOBY!"

"DAD!" He continued to desperately look from his father to the deadly robot beside him, hoping that the latter would remain less violent and not strike out again.

"It's going to be okay Toby. I'm going to get you out! Everything's going to be fine. I promise." The more he tried to comfort his son, the harder the lies seemed to be to tell, and the more dread and desperation crept onto his face.

Toby stood in a panicked daze, dread filling his stomach as he slowly realized that his father's words were empty promises: hollow, and desperate.

Trying to be strong, he locked eyes with his son. His words a hopeful drum across the near impenetrable glass. As he spoke, the fear in his son's eyes overwhelmed the scientist. Choking back his words, he remained silent, taking in the distress and silent resignation that stretched across his son's face.

Toby's little chest picked up in further anxiety and heaved nervously as the foreboding red core energy grew horrendously gigantic in the cold metallic palms of the Peacekeeper.

A whirring noise came from the automaton and almost instantaneously the red core blast had enveloped all in its deadly and powerful glow, leaving those who resided beyond the shield hanging in horror and anticipation.


	2. Tiny hats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Graphic description of death and super feels because of a grieving father

Surprisingly, the blinding light of the deadly red core receded back into the stationary Peacekeeper's chest.

The tall and lanky doctor stared for a moment, stunned, at the place where his young son had been pounding on the glass moments before. Nothing stood in his place.

Scorch marks were burnt into the floor around the machine including where his son had been standing. A thick layer of dust and debris hung in the air, mimicking the atmosphere.

"TOBY!" he cried, as a look of disbelief and desperation passed over his face. He reached out for his son as if it were moments before and the shield had not been there.

Suddenly, perhaps jolted back to animation by the sound of the human, the Peacekeeper's head snapped up and eyed the barrier, which still stood in its way.

The others, who stood safely behind the shield, glanced at one another anxiously as the creation merely stood and stared fixatedly at the barricade before it.

The words 'SHIELD INTACT' and 'ABSORB' beeped and flashed on the red-tinted periscope-like computer screen the robot had. One massive metal arm pressed to the shield and the glass began to melt. It bubbled and rippled and ultimately was sucked away at an increasing speed, into the hole at the end of its arm.

Stunned, Tenma slowly withdrew his hand from the burning glass. Stumbling back a few paces, the pale and clearly distraught father used the barrier to lean on.

 

"Fire now!" President Stone ordered the guards as he ran back to safety.

The line of guards armed with high grade machine-guns and upper body armour fired a continuous barrage of bullets at the monstrous robot. The Peacekeeper, who had started to climb through the melted hole it had made in the shield, was affected very little by the shots. Standing tall, the high-pitched reverberating bullets hit its chest plate and merely pushed it back and away from the hole.

As it fought against the motion, quick thinking Dr. Elefun, who had ducked moments before to avoid the stream of bullets, noticed the two large core cables. Thoughts and possibilities ran through his mind and one plan jumped out at him.

Acting quick on his feet, the short Professor wrenched the massive blue core cable from its source and inching his way forward, he jabbed the sharp blue prongs of the cable into the red core residing in the Peacekeeper's chest.

Once the two cores had connected an electrifying surge shook the robot violently. Almost instantaneously, the dominant blue core erupted beneath its chest plate and the machine was blown backwards. The force was powerful enough to eradicate the connection between the Peacekeeper and the droids it had absorbed. Each of the robots scattered along the floor. The smaller round droids hit the ground and rolled further away, while the massive body of the Peacekeeper collided with the scorched metal surface producing sparks and an earsplitting noise.

 

As the robot's red core shut down and slowly faded out, the functioning shield lifted before the distressed father's face.

Breathing deeply, he walked forward into the debris and called out,

"Wh-where's Toby? Where's my son?"

President Stone, looking completely unaffected by the disastrous scene he had just caused, walked forward to inspect the unresponsive machine, which had nearly killed them all moments before. All of those who had been hidden by the shield spread throughout the other half of the room to investigate the damage.

One of the armed guards motioned over his shoulder.

"Uh… President Stone? I think you should come have a look."

"What is it?" The President replied, practically bored with the situation.

"I don't really want to explain it, sir."

Dr. Elefun, being nearer, walked towards the guard and looked at the source of intrigue. Placing his hand over his mouth he closed his eyes and turned away. Sadness and a sickly colour spread up from his chin.

The stunned Dr. Tenma stood alone wandering through the remaining debris not hearing the guard and President converse. Scanning the wreckage of the horribly failed experiment, a small red dome-like object caught the tall Professor's eye. With a sorrowful exhale, the father stepped forward and almost instantly, a look of recognition passed through his features.

It was his son's cap.

The little red hat was dusty and understandably beaten up.

He slowly reached forward to pick it up. The cap had never been cherished so much as in that one moment when the father squeezed it to his chest and remembered his beloved son.

 

None of the others in the room paid any particular attention to the short man approaching the grief stricken father.

"I am so sorry…Tenma. For the sake of your sanity, my friend, don't be tempted to go there."

His thoughts immediately jumped to his missing child, as if snapped back to reality from his foggy uncertain thoughts. The precious object was still tightly held in his long pointed fingers, when a look of horror danced across his face. The father tried pushing past his short friend.

"What? What did you find?" The Professor asked apprehensively. When he received no answer from his melancholic co-worker, he panicked, shoving forward and towards the guard.

"TENMA! Don't do it!" Elefun shouted back.

 

Collapsing to his knees once he was near enough to recognize the object of intrigue, the father's eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open. It was his son.

"No…Toby" He breathed disbelievingly.

Among the debris and rubble, there lay the badly burnt body of his young son.

From where they stood, Toby had fallen with his back facing them. Legs splayed on the ground and one arm bent at an awkward angle behind his back. His blue hoodie, white shirt and jeans, were singed and torn revealing the dark and bloodied patches of what used to be the soft unmarred skin of his side and back. His hands appeared scuffed and scratched, undoubtedly from desperately pounding on the glass.

When the Professor reached out to slowly turn his son over, a heart wrenching sight met his eyes. The front of his exposed shirt was torn apart and the skin charred badly on the side that was nearest to the Peacekeeper's deadly explosion.

But as if an angelic shield had been erected moments before, his face was only mildly burnt. Toby's eyes were closed, in a cruel pantomime of sleep, his mouth hung open slightly and what little of his neatly gelled hair that remained was blown every which way.

"Toby…" He whispered.

 

For a moment the Professor pulled back, before gathering himself and desperately grabbing at his son. Clutching the limp body tightly to his thin chest he noticed that it was still warm and slightly hot to the touch, most likely from the blast.

He thought to himself that this was the first time in a long while that he had held his child. The physical contact made the father's heart swell with joy but it lasted for only a brief moment before the thought-deafening reality that it would also be the last time, came crashed down on the man.

He hid his long and slender face in the crook of his child's neck. Rubbing his cheek to that of his son, he recalled the first time he ever held his newborn son and lightly ran his slender fingers over the baby's cheek.

Remembering the uncertain touch of his son's hand to his when he had taken him to the museum as a toddler. He had been so small and intrigued by the world around him. The father gripped his son's still warm corpse to him, rocking lightly back and forth.

As the memories flooded in, the man began to crumple. His shoulders tensed, his legs pulled in beneath him tightly and his back hunched over the little body. Tears began to rush down his cheeks as he cradled the child under him.

 

Shallow inhales followed by heart-wrenching sobs echoed out from Tenma's huddled form and filled the room.

"Oh Toby…its all my fault…if only I had…if only I hadn't….oh Toby…I should've spent more time with you. I should've kept my promises…my son…my little boy…" he sobbed quietly.

Dr. Elefun bowed his head and looked away from the painful scene so that his friend could grieve in peace. The doctor listened to the heartbreaking sounds of the father saying a last agonizing goodbye to his son who would not hear a word of it.

He took a deep breath and tried to hold back his own tears as he kept his head down, it hurt to have to listen and know that the most powerful, emotional and loving things the father would ever say to his son would fall on deaf ears.


	3. Waivers

From his crumpled position, the father lifted his tear-stained face and rose with the frail body of his deceased child in his arms.

"T-Tenma? Wh-where are you going?" Elefun stepped forward, breaking his silence. Using the sleeve of his once pristine white lab coat, he dabbed at the corner of his eye, leaving behind a thin streak of tears.

The little red cap lay on the dirty floor feet away, discarded in Tenma's panic at discovering his son's corpse. No one except for a concerned friend paid the important little object any mind.

"Laboratory." The professor answered simply to his co-worker. Elefun's eyes went wide in confusion. The tall man stared straight ahead and practically marched himself towards the exit, as if trying not to think too hard about what he was doing.

"Your labora-why? Why not the hospital?" His small legs tried desperately to keep up with the long legs of the seemingly possessed father. Tenma steeled his expression and walked resolutely onwards. Elefun's confusion turned to concern at seeing the sobbing man become a blank face; a face and demeanor as if on a mission.

The smaller man stopped beside the fallen cap. He picked it up and softly dusted the debris away, reverential in its handling, before turning towards the fleeing father with a stern gaze.

"Tenma. What are you going to do with him?" He called out.

Dr. Tenma stopped mid stride and stood facing his exit with uncertainty. Several moments passed.

"Tenma. What are you going to do with Toby?" Elefun repeated louder, knowing the man had heard him the first time but demanding a response nonetheless.

 

As if spurred by the name of his son, the father turned towards his friend.

"He signed a paper. When he was younger." Tenma's sentence tapered off. Elefun stood silently waiting for him to continue.

"Said that he wanted his body to be donated to science. I-I'm doing the right thing!" The words sounded as if they were more for convincing himself than his co-worker.

"He wouldn't want this for you, my friend." The smaller man's voice softened. Tenma's shoulder slackened, listening to the calming voice of his close friend and co-worker.

"Toby wouldn't want this." Elefun said. Tenma gripped his son's body closer, the words striking a nerve. Inhaling deeply he grit his teeth in anger.

"Toby wouldn't want to be like this. He wanted to go to the Symposium. I'm doing the right thing." The father strengthened his resolve, spun on his heels and continued towards the doors, this time at a hurried pace.

"I'm doing the right thing. I'll make him better so that I can be a better father to him."

Dr. Elefun was left standing in the middle of the giant damaged room, staring at the door in shock. His mouth hung slack before he swallowed deliberately in realization that his friend had snapped.

He gently held the discarded red cap in his hands and ran his fingers along the edges. Remembering the big eyes of a very young Toby that peaked out from beneath the lip of his favourite red hat from across the dinner table years ago.

Elefun looked up and spoke towards the empty door, "The right thing for whom?"


	4. Tears in the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the dust clears and silence blankets the world, all that is left is how we deal with our pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Graphic description of corpse and super feels because of a crazed grieving father

Spread across the solid illuminated workstation, Tenma shuffled through stacks and stacks of documents.

“Where are they?” he mumbled to himself. Scrambling around as he tossed bundles of crumpled and disorganized papers behind him until the floor was carpeted with instruction manuals, lists, and unintelligible handwriting. 

Jamming his hands into his unkempt hair, Tenma groaned angrily. His eyes darting about the expanse of the surface until his harried thoughts stilled long enough to notice a tube. It was peeking out from beneath a blank sheet of paper where it had been buried under the result of his panicked searching. 

Unrolling the hidden scroll revealed highly detailed blueprints, some of which featured diagrams of Toby’s face.

 

Far back against the wall stood two hesitant scientists; Both staring intently at the Doctor’s form. A third scientist emerged from the shadows: carting a flat trolley piled with wires, metal plates, and copper tubing. 

Tenma walked over to the flatbed and rifled through the heap. Sticking his hand through the sharp metal edges, the conical tip of something stuck out. Brushing aside the unneeded hardware, a neat stack of unused rockets revealed themselves to Tenma. 

Immediately filling his arms with the cylindrical projectiles, he vanished once again into his workstation; The three scientists eyeing one another, concerned and more than a little frightened.

Having gathered all of the necessary pieces for his project, Tenma entered a code into the display panel and the large overhead laser engaged. The thin beam of bright intense blue light ran along the connecting and overlapping edges of metal, attaching them together without any flux or silver solder. The scientist, with a determined look on his face, focused intently on the ray.

From afar, the scientists had a partially obscured view of the table, laser hissing across the strewn about metal pieces that surrounded the most concerning item on the workbench: the charred corpse of the scientist’s son.

 

As if hit with a sudden reminder, Tenma walked slowly but with purpose towards the holographic suspension case beside the console that held Toby’s still intact red baseball cap. 

Lowering the clear walls, he slowly picked up the hat and held it securely in his shaking hands. With a deep shuddered breath, he used medical tweezers to reach inside and remove a dark hair woven into the hat’s red fabric. 

Like it was the final piece of the puzzle, the father reverently dropped the thick hair into a cylindrical compartment on the monitor’s dashboard. A tense silence lay upon the room as he waited and stared at the screen; The computer’s display counting upward as it scanned the DNA locked within the strand.

 

While waiting, the three confused scientists stepped closer to the Doctor, intensely keeping their gazes on the screen and away from the deceased body of the young boy they had all met and enjoyed the company and curiosity of.

Spinning frantically towards the table, several large screens popped up above the little body lying on it, like a cruel digital mockery of a headstone. 

One by one, screens of every size layered one on top of another, each containing a video of a different time or event in Toby’s life. Each containing a memory. Each both paying tribute and morbidly painting a picture of one child’s entire existence. 

Him as a baby reaching up from within his crib. Picnicking in the park on a checkered blanket. Presenting to his class in school. Eating dinner. Playing on Orin’s shoulders.

Pointing, discovering, and learning; Fascinated about the world. 

Each memory included his father.

 

The doors disengaged, sliding open to reveal the troubled Doctor Elefun holding a metal briefcase in his fist. 

Relieved at the sight of another friend and colleague, the third scientist in his beret and glasses quickly approached the older man. “Thank goodness you’re here. We aren’t sure what to do. He hasn’t eaten or slept for days.”

“I know.”

“He’s gone crazy, hasn’t he?” The bespectacled scientist inquired dejectedly. 

Elefun rested a wrinkled hand on his coworker’s shoulder and looked towards his old friend sadly. “If you lose your son like that and you don’t go crazy? You’re not a human being.”

 

Hearing the deep older voice caught Tenma’s attention. The father stepped swiftly over to Elefun, ripping the case from his hands and unlocking the two tiny latches. The lid airily popped open, luminescent blue light highlighted the dark creases and bags on his face as he reached in and delicately removed the Blue Core. 

“Clear the lab!” Tenma shouted, his voice echoing in the vast empty room. The three scientists hurried out in fear of the desperate man, the doors sliding shut behind them.

Elefun’s eyes lingered over to where the fleeting forms had been before, swiveling his head back to Tenma who had hunched over the large table, blue light creating ominous shapes and shadows against the surrounding floors and wall. A click and a whirr completed his scattered movements. Elefun held his breath and stepped closer.

A panel of light appeared beside Tenma, accompanied by a high-pitched trill. Elefun approached until what was on the table was in clear view. The sight knocked the air from his lungs. 

The form was nearly indistinguishable as having been a living being in the past. Layers of burnt skin scraped away, damaged and unusable appendages removed, and hair shaved off. 

There lay what had once been Toby, bare as the day he was born and laying prostrate on the cold sterile unforgiving surface of his father’s laboratory workbench. 

Elefun could no longer look. 

Turning away, he closed his eyes and held a hand to his mouth, choking back the need to vomit. He stood still hoping that the feeling would subside.

 

The warble of the laser panel cut off suddenly and when Elefun glanced over at the table top he was stunned. 

Laying where the mangled corpse had been, there was Toby: whole and hale. His skin unblemished, his hands and legs attached, and his hair completely regrown. 

Everything looked as if the past week had just been a terrible nightmare. 

 

Tenma stepped closer, hands raised, wanting but too afraid to touch his own son.

“It-it looks just like him! Doesn’t it? A perfect replica. It has the most advanced defense systems ever created grafted into his body; His bones, his organs, his skin, every part of him is enhanced and protected. I won’t lose him again.” His eyes hovered over the digital display, reading the diagnostics report intently.

 

A large screen appeared, covering the other memory clips. Brighter, more jagged and sharp than the others. 

Tenma glanced up at the screen, Elefun following suit only after seeing the stunned wide-eyed look the father had. 

The video’s left edge a highly pigmented red and on the screen was the face of a very panicked and distressed Tenma. His hands out in front of him trying to get closer.  
"It's going to be okay Toby. I'm going to get you out! Everything's going to be fine. I promise."

Toby’s final moment alive, captured perfectly in vivid detail and crisp sound, repeating over and over.

The father tore his eyes from the screen angrily, jabbing the monitor and inputting a command quickly before stepping back to watch his handiwork. Several screens closer to the front, including the one featuring Tenma’s large distraught face, faded away into nothingness. 

 

Directing himself to Elefun he spoke, “I’ve uploaded almost all of Toby’s memories.” Practically giddy with excitement, the towering scientist smiled up at the screen. 

Hair askew, sweat clinging to his brow, hands twitching, and with a mad look in his eyes, his smile dropped suddenly. “It’ll think it is Toby…”

Elefun stared gaping at his old friend, tears welling in the corners of his eyes.  
“Tenma…what have you done? He’s a cyborg! How could you do this to him, your own child? To have his body desecrated and manipulated like this instead of being laid to rest. Toby didn’t deserve this-”

“TOBY DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE!”

The father’s deep breaths weighed heavy in the oppressive silence of the laboratory.

“Toby shouldn’t have been there. It was my fault. I should have told him to run. Should have told him to hide and he didn’t-. He-. He wasn’t supposed to. He didn’t deserve to die. He wasn’t supposed to die.”

Elefun reached his hand out and lightly touched his friend’s forearm. Tenma shook him off roughly. “I can’t lose him too. Not after his mother. I didn’t deserve to lose him too.” 

His voice quivered slightly. Eyes damp with a trickle running down the sharp slope of his cheek and curving at his chin before dripping to the documents that covered the floor around him. 

Tenma raised the sleeve of his white lab coat and swiped along the moisture before clearing his throat. “So I fixed him. It’s perfect… he’s perfect. Just like Toby was.” 

 

The distraught father lay one of his hands on the newly formed chest and his other on his son’s spotless forehead. Eyelids flickered gently against the sensation of warm pressure. 

The faint sound of whirring gears was followed by the delicate movement of fingers; Moving up and down softly and repeatedly, almost as if playing the piano. 

As the body hummed to life, the machinery became practically inaudible, and over it floated a soft and uncertain sound.

“Da-ad?”

The little cyborg drifted off into sleep looking at the face of his relieved father. Elefun gawked as Tenma hoisted his son into his arms and walked towards the door. In the hollow quietude of the laboratory, Tenma’s voice bounced off the metal walls.

“Now we can be together again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my patient, and honestly bordering on angelic at this point, readers:  
> I graduated university and I'm done with my academic career. Booya!  
> Now to job hunt and finish this fic for you all!  
> I've started on Chapter 5 but don't know whether this fic needs 1 or 2 more chapters to bring it to its logical conclusion.
> 
> Lemme know what you think of this chapter and what you hope happens :)


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